How do I programmatically locate my Dropbox folder

Question

How do I programmatically locate my Dropbox folder using C#? * Registry? * Environment Variable? * Etc...

Answer 1

UPDATED SOLUTION

Dropbox now provides an info.json file as stated here: https://www.dropbox.com/en/help/4584

If you don't want to deal with parsing the JSON, you can simply use the following solution:

var infoPath = @"Dropbox\info.json";

var jsonPath = Path.Combine(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("LocalAppData"), infoPath);            

if (!File.Exists(jsonPath)) jsonPath = Path.Combine(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("AppData"), infoPath);

if (!File.Exists(jsonPath)) throw new Exception("Dropbox could not be found!");

var dropboxPath = File.ReadAllText(jsonPath).Split('\"')[5].Replace(@"\\", @"\");

If you'd like to parse the JSON, you can use the JavaScripSerializer as follows:

var serializer = new System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer();            

var dictionary = (Dictionary < string, object>) serializer.DeserializeObject(File.ReadAllText(jsonPath));

var dropboxPath = (string) ((Dictionary < string, object> )dictionary["personal"])["path"];

DEPRECATED SOLUTION:

You can read the the dropbox\host.db file. It's a Base64 file located in your AppData\Roaming path. Use this:

var dbPath = System.IO.Path.Combine(
                    Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData), "Dropbox\\host.db");

var dbBase64Text = Convert.FromBase64String(System.IO.File.ReadAllText(dbPath));

var folderPath = System.Text.ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetString(dbBase64Text);

Hope it helps!

Answer 2

public static string getDropBoxPath()
    {
        try
        {
            var appDataPath = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData);
            var dbPath = Path.Combine(appDataPath, "Dropbox\\host.db");
            if (!File.Exists(dbPath))
            {
                return null;
            }
            else
            {
                var lines = File.ReadAllLines(dbPath);
                var dbBase64Text = Convert.FromBase64String(lines[1]);
                var folderPath = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(dbBase64Text);
                return folderPath;
            }
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            throw ex;
        }
    }

Answer 3

The host.db method has stopped working in later versions of dropbox.

https://www.dropbox.com/en/help/4584 gives the recommended approach.

Here is the c# code I wrote to parse the json and get the dropbox folder.

       // https://www.dropbox.com/en/help/4584 says info.json file is in one of two places
       string filename = Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables( @"%LOCALAPPDATA%\Dropbox\info.json" );
       if ( !File.Exists( filename ) ) filename = Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables( @"%APPDATA%\Dropbox\info.json" );
       JavaScriptSerializer serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
       // When deserializing a string without specifying a type you get a dictionary <string, object>
       Dictionary<string, object> obj = serializer.DeserializeObject( File.ReadAllText( filename ) ) as Dictionary<string, object>;
       obj = obj[ "personal" ] as Dictionary<string, object>;
       string path = obj[ "path" ] as string;
       return path;

Answer 4

Dropbox has added a new helper, there is a JSON file in either %APPDATA%\Dropbox\info.json or %LOCALAPPDATA%\Dropbox\info.json.

See https://www.dropbox.com/help/4584 for more information.

Answer 5

Cleaner version based on previous answers (use var, added exists check, remove warnings):

    private static string GetDropBoxPath()
    {
        var appDataPath = Environment.GetFolderPath(
                                           Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData);
        var dbPath = Path.Combine(appDataPath, "Dropbox\\host.db");

        if (!File.Exists(dbPath))
            return null;

        var lines = File.ReadAllLines(dbPath);
        var dbBase64Text = Convert.FromBase64String(lines[1]);
        var folderPath = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(dbBase64Text);

        return folderPath;
    }

Answer 6

UPDATE JULY 2016: THE CODE BELOW NO LONGER WORKS DUE TO CHANGES IN THE DROPBOX CLIENT, SEE ACCEPTED ANSWER ABOVE FOR UP-TO-DATE SOLUTION

Reinaldo's answer is essentially correct but it gives some junk output before the path because there seem to be two lines in the host.db file and in this case you only want to read the second one. The following will get you just the path.

string appDataPath = Environment.GetFolderPath(
                                   Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData);
string dbPath = System.IO.Path.Combine(appDataPath, "Dropbox\\host.db");
string[] lines = System.IO.File.ReadAllLines(dbPath);
byte[] dbBase64Text = Convert.FromBase64String(lines[1]);
string folderPath = System.Text.ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetString(dbBase64Text);
Console.WriteLine(folderPath);